April 1833 he made some very serious charges against foreign residents. Not only did these adventurers hunt and trap in defiance of the laws, but they took advantage of their hunting expeditions as a pretext to explore the whole country and conciliate the gentiles, giving at the same time bad advice to citizens, and all with the intention, or under the guidance of men who had the intention, of eventually seizing this part of the republic.[1] The Russians and Americans were chiefly feared; and the former were somewhat more alarmed about the ambitious views of the Yankees than were the Californians themselves, being in fact the parties most directly interested; though, as we have seen, Californian ambition on the part of Russia was confined to a very few individuals. Zavalishin states that repeated warnings were given in Russian reports.[2]
Voyagers to California had frequently spoken and written of its natural advantages and its great prospective yalue as a national possession, and they had also pointed out clearly the case with which it might be wrested from Spain or Mexico. But while individual foreigners probably — Americans and Russians certainly — thought and spoke of the time when California night belong to their respective countrymen,[3] I doubt if any scheme of encroachment had yet taken definite form in the councils of any nation. There was, however, a proposition for the purchase of northern
- ↑ April 12, 1833, F. to min of war. St. Pap., Miss. and Colon., MS., ii. 303-4. In March P. Gutierrez of Solano had complained of dangers to be apprehended from foreign settlers on lands in that region, but this was with a view to local mission interests rather than those of the nation. Dept. St. Pap., MS., iii. 101-2. June 5, 1834, F. sends to Mex. an account of the foreigners in Cal. – document not extant — but believes the number to be really much greater than appears, since many are not registered. Id., iii. 139.
- ↑ Zavalishin, Delo o Koloniy Ross, 13-14. The Russian American governor in April 1934 mentioned the coming of 163 armed Americans with their families to settle, and Baron Wrangell, in a report of his mission to Mexico, stated that the U. S. minister had openly said, 'Oh, this part of California we will not lose sight of. We have parties there who gather and forward all possible information; and the time is not far off when northern California will come into our confederation.'
- ↑ Morrell, in his Narrative, published in 1832, draws in print a glowing picture of Cal. as it would be under the rule of the U. S.
